Valeriano Abello

Valeriano Ibañez Abello (1913-2000) was a Filipino civilian who was given the Philippine Legion of Honor for his efforts during World War II to aid the US Navy against the Japanese. He is most remembered today in Boy Scouting literature.

During the United States Navy's assault on Leyte on 18 October 1944, three former Boy Scouts, Valeriano Ibañez Abello, Antero Junia, and Vicente Tistón, mobilised and took action due to the extreme danger to the civilian populations posed by the naval bombardment. Acting as sender, receiver, and paddler respectively, Abello, Junia, and Tistón established communication with ship 467 using signalling (learned in youth as Scouts of Troop 11), identified themselves "Boy Scouts of America," pushed out by bangkâ (outrigger canoe), got capsised by Japanese fire, swam to the ship, and were taken aboard. They provided information pinpointing Japanese installations and diverting shelling away from populated areas of Tolosa, Leyte. Their intrepid actions made good copy for war correspondents on board ship. For their heroism, Abello was conferred the Philippine Legion of Honor by Pres. Ramón Magsaysáy in 1956, a statue representing Abello was erected in Telegrafó, and Signal Day would be observed annually on 18 October.

An attempt by relatives to have Abello buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani / Heroes' Cemetery failed.

Sources are inconsistent about Abello's companions. They are named:

Most plausible, perhaps, are the comments of OpinYon publisher Ray L. Junia made in a speech during the commemoration of Signal Day at Telegrafo, Tolosa, Leyte, on October 18, 2015:

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